


Shame

by the_blue_fairie



Category: Original Work
Genre: Autobiography, Body Image, Gen, Loss of Innocence, Nudism, Self-Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-12 12:20:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29010414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_blue_fairie/pseuds/the_blue_fairie
Summary: A prose-poem inspired by a vivid and painful memory from my childhood.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 9





	Shame

Innocence is a word of smooth surfaces, of babies’ skin.

Silk-smooth, soft. Sensitive.

We idealize the word, secure it within a box of gold beyond the walls of a pharaoh’s tomb, secret-deep, lest someone grasp it – untouchable –

We idealize the word – but the word does not bruise as skin does, blue as lapis lazuli, but not lapis lazuli for lapis lazuli is carven-hard and skin is soft, bluing dully, purpling, bruises pulsing on the skin…

The child reads in a book with a smooth-surfaced cover on which shines an Egyptian mask of gold, a children’s book on the subject of mummies and pyramids, of gods gilded by the grace of our modern age, morphed into mythology and marvel-tales, reads these words: “Yikes! Young children in ancient Egypt didn’t wear any clothes at all.”

_Yikes_ is a spiked word, like a death-trap in some mummy movie, some fanciful contraption to kill – all in good fun, good fun, Brendan-Fraser-fun, Indiana-Jones-fun, the contrivances we create of the past for our entertainment, modern-mélange…

The spikes of the word condition the young reader to go, “Gross!” or, “Ew!” and giggle to themselves…

But innocence slips between the spikes – _slips in_ – the child did not mean it to – and innocence does not comprehend why the word is meant to cut, does not feel the edge…

The child does not react the way the word wants them to, and instead of going, “Gross!”, goes, “Oh, wow!”

In fact, begins feeling envious.

She takes her markers from her pencil-box, a treasure-box of her own, and draws gold ringlets around her ankles. With the same yellow marker, she adorns her arms with gold… and shucks her clothes away…

She dances about her room, imagines running upon the banks of the Nile, the warm Egyptian air upon her skin – free –

But her bedroom door is ajar and she is soon caught.

We idealize innocence, the word, but not innocence itself.

We do not idealize shame – in fact, we recognize its hard edges – but we wield it just the same. Recognition is artifice, just as idealization is artifice.

She does not know, at first, what she has done wrong – but she learns it, learns the thing wrong in _her_.

Condemns herself for committing the sin of innocence.


End file.
